News > Two United Hospital Fund Reports Offer New Data on Service Use and Spending for Medicaid Beneficiaries in New York

The United Hospital Fund has released updated versions of two widely disseminated publications, each addressing patterns and trends in service use and spending for New York's Medicaid beneficiaries. Both publications are products of the Fund's Medicaid Institute™.

While produced independently, the publications reach numerous similar and complementary conclusions, including confirmation of the longstanding trend that a small number of recipients are responsible for a high percentage of the state's Medicaid spending.

• Medicaid in New York: A Primer is an expanded version of the first publication (of the same title) created in 2005 through the Fund's Medicaid Institute™. In addition to the latest information on eligibility rules, beneficiaries, covered benefits, spending patterns, and major challenges, new analysis has been added to provide greater context. For example, it notes the historic rise in Medicaid enrollment—1.5 million New Yorkers, or an increase of 55 percent in enrollment, between 2000 and 2005—while pointing out that Medicaid spending in New York over the same period grew at an average annual compound rate of 7.7 percent—lower than the 8.2 percent growth rate for all national health expenditures. The primer was written by Michael Birnbaum, senior health policy analyst at the Fund.

• Medicaid Managed Care Reexamined is the most comprehensive independent report produced in recent years examining the status of managed care for Medicaid beneficiaries in New York. It updates the Fund's landmark 2003 report Medicaid Managed Care in New York: A Work in Progress. While managed care has been promoted since the early 1990s as a way to improve quality of care while controlling growth in spending, “there are still surprisingly few efforts to examine how well the program is achieving its basic goals,” says the report. It also identifies several challenges that hinder Medicaid managed care from achieving its overarching goals, including the relatively weak position of health plans to modify provider behavior and the negative impact of frequent enrollment turnover on the coordination of care. The report was written for the Fund by Michael Sparer, JD, PhD, of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

“These reports each provide thoughtful looks at New York's Medicaid program, pointing out its complexity and identifying opportunities for improvement,” said James R. Tallon, Jr., president of the United Hospital Fund. “The program is responsible for providing an enormously broad range of services to a population whose needs are just as diverse. These reports attempt to capture some of that complexity and guide discussions as our state continues to work to make meaningful improvements to the program.”

About the United Hospital Fund: The United Hospital Fund is a health services research and philanthropic organization whose mission is to shape positive change in health care for the people of New York.

About the Medicaid Institute™: The Medicaid Institute™ at United Hospital Fund provides information and analysis explaining new York's Medicaid program, with the goal of helping all stakeholders redesign, restructure, and rebuild the program.


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